> Does pointing to new social phenomena mean that one is automatically an
> irresponsible theorist? I am still amazed by the a priori hostility towards
> Hardt and Negri because they try to describe historical changes.
For me (having only read Empire, and some time ago), the major problem is not novelty and change, but that everything is supposed to have changed all at once, and changed so much that the old has completely passed away. Fordism and post-Fordism as zeitgeists. I have a lot of problems with the Fordism/post-Fordism dichotomy even in the regulationist literature that spawned it. But at least the best regulationists talk about change over several social fields which do not necessarily evolve in the same time frames.
More broadly, I just don't find their style of argument convincing. They are making political-economic and generally social scientific arguments, and don't back them up with social scientific standards of evidence and argument. Maybe this comes down their lit and philosophy backgrounds, but there are plenty of theorists from those disciplines who also do good social science. There are flashes of insight which may be useful, may be inspirational in some ways, but they are not arguments that will convince anyone not already predisposed to think that way. It comes across as speculative and even mystical in places.
Cheers, Mike scandalum.wordpress.com